Shadow Work For Hot Messes by Mandi Em

subtitled Transform From Chaos To Clarity By Embracing Your Authentic Self.

This book took me forever to read, and that’s a good thing. Despite being slender, with plenty of white space for readers to fill in with their own thoughts and responses to the prompts, it’s a very meaty volume for anyone genuinely interested in doing the work on making themself a better person.

Ofc the next question most people will ask is what is this work, and specifically what is shadow work? Mandi Em explains it much better than I do, but you know that weird kneejerk reaction you sometimes get that is definitely not you being your best self? Maybe it comes out in jealousy or anger or some other destructive — and often self-destructive — way, overwhelming your rational processes so that later you go, “whoa, I can’t believe I did that, and I’m not saying that in a good way, either.” That’s essentially your shadow self taking over, usually as a coping mechanism once learned in reaction to deep-seated trauma.

This workbook helps you take a look at yourself and figure out your own shadows, then walks you through the process of engaging with them, understanding what they’re rooted in and learning how to integrate them in a healthy manner. It is, thusly, A Lot. Ms Em approaches it all with humor and love, however, and strongly recommends getting professional help as well if possible. But if that help is not easily accessible or available, then this book is a spectacular way to get started on unlearning bad behavior via addressing what causes us to act in those manners. Perhaps most importantly, it teaches us how to be kinder to others by first of all learning to be kind to ourselves.

It’s a little ironic that I went through this book thinking a lot of “oh, this is great, but I’ve advanced beyond that” in terms of how I treat the people around me as a result of my own occasionally fraught upbringing. I’ve made a lot of conscious decisions with my parenting especially, as well as with my romantic life, to be empathetic and kind but also to maintain firm boundaries. I understand that while I’m the main character in my own life, everyone else is the main character in their own, and it’s important that we all treat each other with dignity and respect. So I finished the workbook essentially congratulating myself for being a healthy person who models the behaviors she likes to see, but will still call out bullshit in as diplomatic a way as possible.

And then I spent a disastrous evening with my sister. We recently received some upsetting family news, and I feared that she would try to make it about her, as she usually does. Of our three siblings, she’s the one who most needs therapy, as she’s the one most easily affected by our parents’ unwitting but effective manipulations. My mother is a narcissist and my father enables her, and my sister has unfortunately picked up too many of my mother’s habits. She’s better the further away she is from my mom, but the recent news definitely had her regressing into my mother’s overly critical, gaslighting ways. Needless to say, it was not a pleasant evening for me. My angry, defensive shadow self came roaring out in response to her being a bitch, not helped by my co-parent’s equal investment in making me feel like I was the one being unreasonable. I am still figuring out how best to engage with her as a person who does not want to escalate the situation, even as she continues to gaslight me over text about how cranky I was, as if I had no right to be upset by her being a selfish asshole.

Fortunately, I have this terrific book to help me sort out these tangled family matters! It isn’t a perfect substitute for therapy, but it really goes into a lot of what you generally need in order to start better understanding and healing yourself. Personalized therapy would be much more effective ofc, but it’s also out of reach for way too many people. Ms Em’s workbook is an excellent way to start getting real with yourself while also understanding that your baser reactions are there for a reason, and that it will take just as much time to unlearn them in favor of healthier coping strategies. That’s really valuable, practical stuff, and at a shockingly low price compared to getting professional help. I can’t recommend this book highly enough, even as I go back to its pages to help me deal with all the unexpected emotional pitfalls of being a functioning and (hopefully) ultimately happy adult.

Shadow Work For Hot Messes by Mandi Em was published October 15 2024 by Adams Media and is available from all good booksellers, including